Monday, May 28, 2012

as i was a little rushed setting up for open studio, i feel a couple
of our pieces that we finished last week deserved a few more comments
and photos, so here they are, along with some other photographic
highlights from the weekend ... click the photos to enlarge them ...

above the open studio shop photo is a better photo of the claro wlanut slab table we had on display this weekend. it is leaving tomorrow with the ladderbacks to spend the summer at the vermont visitors center in guilford. a lot of folks (about 600,000 stop there per year) enter vermont from massachusetts and connecticut on route 91, and we're hoping that some of them will see our work and contact us with new commissions .. it seems like we ought to be able to get at least one or two out of 150,000 or so. summer's a good time here ...

this is a close up of the under structure with our new base design using polished and welded 5/8ths" rebar. people almost smiled when they noticed the rebar ... it fits in with our 'bethlehem steel' and 'bridges' series too.

for the copper table, which was the other big furniture hit of the weekend, we started out with a 1/2 size model a month or so ago. i did that on my own nickle, even before i actually got the commission for the big table. i figured i couldn't go wrong with whatever i wound up with, and i was intrigued with the clients' concept as well as my concept for executing their ideas. it also was a test of my local sheet metal shop on the execution of the design ...

the clients loved the model and i even found a half size chair mockup i made a long while back to contribute a sense of scale. this is it in the raw and our only objection was that the copper didn't lay perfectly flat and 'humped' and rattled occasionally, a problem i expected to get worse as the individual sheets doubled in size. i also figured there are only so many nails you can apply before it would look too 'naily'.

so, our solution was to get some weldwood contact cement and glue each copper piece to the plywood and 2 x 10 substrate as we went along. before we got our veneer bags, this was our typical process for installing central inlays in our dining tables. it also works great for male/female lamination forms. these are mostly 2 ton hydraulic jacks you can get quite cheaply on line or at your local hardware. i think i have about a half dozen. be sure to support the table underneath before cranking them up.

the last little bit of design was stablilzing the two base pieces and supporting the 9' span, which we did with sam's help and a little twisted and welded steel ...

tah dah ...

after sanding and sort of polishing the copper and the nails with some red 5" round scrotchbrite pads we found at the hardware store, we applied a chemical called liver of sulfide (outside please... rotten egg smell) and today, after some back and forth, i oiled it with a polished on coat of linseed oil which blended the fingerprints from the weekend and made it look like a beautiful old penny. i absolutely love the look and i have a couple proposals to send out for other sizes and different bases. liver of sulphur is available from dickblick art supply. clean the copper first with dish soap and a little ammonia. follow the directions and rinse neutralize (2 spoons of baking soda to 2 cups of water) the copper when it looks they way you want it to. the initial cleaning seems really important ...

here jim patinas the 1/2 size mockup. you can clearly see the before and after here.

a view down the table's 11' length ... it's off to Connecticut tomorrow ...

and we have a 10' claro walnut table that is virtually finished, slightly ahead of the house where it is going to live. it needs only a final topcoat and some polish.
i thought about setting it up on its base for the weekend, but it's really heavy,
and the shop was too full, and maybe we'd drop it, or someone would
scratch it ... in the end, we left it on edge, covered with soundboard and only occasionally allowed interested visitors to have a peak ... enlarge this one. it has a great fiddleback figure over its entire length and is without a doubt the most consistently figured slab i have ever seen.

we did set up its blackened base though .. folks are always amazed at the minimalness of the structure, but that is made up for by the weight of it. steel prices have skyrocketed lately though and that is the reason we are exploring other base deisgns like the rebar above. just the steel and the cutting was $1800. and then the pieces still have to be drilled and tapped, ground and polished, sanded, patinated and finished, a process that almost doubles the cost of the steel. i get a lot of inquires on these, but few takers.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

we had an excellent first day of open studio weekend saturday. we started off with a long list and a pretty big pile of disorganized stuff friday morning, but by 5:30, we had it all together, the studio doors were locked, and kit and i were sitting by the pond. click the photos to enlarge them ... we added the leather seats to the chairs first thing and put them
upstairs out of the dust explosion that occurs once a year when we clean
the shop for this event. this is what it looked like around 9:00 am, and the photos above and below were taken just before i shut out the lights at around 5:00.as you come in the door there are two slabs of claro walnut that we finished in anticipation of clients who were arriving friday after lunch to discuss a coffee table, which they ordered. the weekend was off to a good start ...they considered the two we had put finish on, but in the end, selected one that we hadn't prepared ... bonus ..these 6 ladderbacks we built to go with the claro slab table with the rebar 'x' base that we finished thursday. that table and chairs will be going to the guilford, vermont, welcome center on route 91 for july, august, and september as a display piece to troll for new work. the state offers space to crafts people who ask for it for free in three month blocks. i was lucky to get the summer block and my contact told me that over 600,000 people stop there in an average year. it is a beautiful space. imagine that ... we have high hopes for that piece of marketing.probably the 'most commented on' item of the day was this copper top table we finished on friday around 2:00. (cut it a little close) .. it's 3' wide and 11' long.it's based loosely on an antique french provincial wood top table image from the internet. this table will get its own post as the whole process was interesting. you can see most of the half size mockup behind the chairs photo above. it turns out that the mahogany coffee table will be around for another 3 weeks or so so we found a place for that .sam finished the base thursday for this bench we fabricated from an offcut of a table we made two years ago. it was originally about a foot wider and had some issues, but after some judicious trimming, made a nice little bench ... i actually sold it today and it will be going to a local home where they'll use it as a coffee table on a covered porch ... perfect ...sam had two of his three spark screen/fireplace inserts on display and they received some excellent reviews ...and will dropped off his new 'daffodil' banjo that he finished wednesday on his way to a gig in glover, vermont, waaaay up north ...rum drinks and beer for my crew ... kit got her jewelry set up in the finish room ...and penny set up her paintings in the finish room with kit's jewelry and then took a rum and a tour of the shop with trevor ...we go back to the late 70's with jim and penny, and you couldn't ask for better friends ... all for now ...
more photos tomorrow ...

Thursday, May 24, 2012

5/27 ... hmmm ... i'm still considering all the things i now have to learn about this new layout. i used it many times yesterday during the first day of open studio. some good things; some bad things; some things i discovered ...

- it's somewhat easier to navigate if you use the fly out menus to the right and select 'blog archive and look at one year or even one month at a time.
- if you're looking for metalwork, banjos, or info on finishing, claro walnut slab furniture, use the 'categories' view.
- i wish it didn't have to cycle back through the home page everytime you close a blown up photo.
- if you're browser supports it, the flyout menu on the top left also has a 'magazine' optiom that gives more information on the individual posts.
- i wish i could figure out if traffic was increasing, or in fact, has dropped to 3 visitors a day, which seems unlikely to me. another place i looked says that my traffic shot up ... who knows?
- the < & > arrows at the top left are handy for scrolling recent posts.
- i'm gonna leave it for now and hopefully it's working ... please add your two cents ... thanks. dan

from 5/25
after all my whining about the new blogger interface, i thought it would be appropriate if i also said something really nice about google too. they do amazing things for me and for dorset custom furniture, like hosting about 1500 of my photos on the internet for free. and this morning, they sent me a friendly email encouraging me to try their new free blogger layout tools ... the coffee kicked in just before i hit the delete button and i checked it out ... though i'm not always an early adapter, ( i still don't have a smart phone or an ipad ) i thought this was too good to pass up ... so, now when you visit my blog, you see not only a photo from the current post, but you see the highlight photos from ALL of my 500+ posts. click on the image, go to the post. what could be easier? simple, direct and it brings our history to light without the frustrating hunt and peck ... please add a comment or send me an email to let us know what you think about it. love it or hate it, i'd like to know ... i have pretty slow internet here and it's still works ... so, enjoy ... check out the old stuff when you have a minute ... happy memorial day weekend and stop by for open studio if you're in the area ...

this weekend marks the 20th anniversary of vermont open studio weekend. we took a couple years off when we moved from arlington to dorset, but i think this is the 16th or 17th year for us. it's a great event. there are over 250 artists across vermont who will be opening their studios to the public saturday and sunday, 10-5 both days. look for the yellow signs. there will be a lot to see at our shop: kit will be there with her handmade jewelry, penny viscusi will have her locally inspired pastels, sam's metalwork, will's banjos and for one reason or another, a large collection of our furniture, both completed and in process. there are two pieces left from our winter show, the mirror and the bureau, an unusual 11' copper top table, waiting to be delivered to connecticut next week, and the square mahogany coffee table in the previous blog post.

this figured cherry bureau measures about 36 wide x 39 high by about 23" deep. all items will have special 'open studio special' reduced prices.

and the mirror has a stand from the show or can be hung directly on a flat wall.

we'll also have a claro walnut slab table with the rebar base with six chairs. we are planning to have that all finished friday so that it can be delivered to the guilford, vermont welcome center where it will be on display for the summer months.

and a copper top porch table which is a new concept for us .. above is an early view, before the copper was nailed on and the base completed ... this post will be updated with new photos as we approach the opening bell saturday morning ... come on by if you're in the area .. this saturday and sunday 10-5 both days.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

this custom mahogany coffee table is ready to go now ... it's based on a design by ramsay gourd and we have made several of them over the years. this one features some particularly nice figured mahogany from our friends at irion lumber and a rich reddish finish to be friendly a bubinga piano that resides in the same room. it will be on it's way to california this week or next. click the photos to enlarge them ...

trevor ran most of the parts below on the cnc and then with the help of some techniques and jigs he's developed over the series, assembled and finished this one.

the top photo's a little oranger than it really is and this one's a little redder ... still trying to figure out my new camera.